Bio
Trevor Zavac (he/him, b. 2000), is a composer, hornist, and wordist who explores the elitism of hyper-academic musical constructions through a juxtaposition with witty theatrics and nonsensical narratives. He uses polyconnotational connections between text and music to ponder how complexity and abstraction highlight the whimsy, humor, and beauty of the queer experience.
Zavac’s music has been performed by a myriad of chamber groups and large ensembles at the University of Southern California, the Brevard Music Center, and Indiana University; including the Thornton Symphony, Thornton Edge, the Butler University Composers Orchestra, and Brevard New Music Ensemble. His music has been choreographed by Eli Diersing and performed by the Indianapolis Ballet for their “New Works” performance series.
In the summers 2021 and 2022, Zavac attended the Brevard Music Center Summer Composition Institute in Brevard, North Carolina where his orchestra piece, Convulsions, was awarded a premiere by the Brevard Music Center Orchestra under the direction of Keith Lockhart. Zavac’s “Fringe” won honorable mention in the 2022 International Horn Society Composition Contest and was exhibited at the International Horn Symposium in Montreal in July of 2023. In 2024, Zavac was awarded an ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer’s Award for his piece, The Butterfly. The San Francisco Contemporary Music Players premiered Zavac’s work, “Composition No. 0136”, in 2026 after a completion grant from the ARTZenter Institute. In February of 2026, a version of this piece for full orchestra was premiered by the USC Thornton Symphony.
As an instrumentalist, Zavac has performed with a myriad of ensembles at Butler University, Indiana University, and the University of Southern California. In addition to studying horn, Zavac is a historical performer of fortepiano, on which he presents historically curated concerts as a costumed first and/or third person interpreter at living history museums around the country. As a conductor, Zavac lead the Big Red Horn Club at IU from 2022-2024.
Zavac is also an accomplished writer, having received recognition for his humor writing and poetry. His humorous short story, “Letter to My Substitute,” was published inScholastic’s anthology The Best Teen Writing of 2018. Additionally, Zavac is a historically informed textile artist, using historical weaving methods to both reproduce 19th century textiles, and create contemporary works.
A graduate of the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music (B.M. Composition, B.M. Horn Performance), Zavac currently attends the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music, where he is pursuing a M.M. in Composition. He has studied horn with Gail Lewis, Richard Seraphinoff, and Thomas Jöstlein; and composition with Michael Schelle, PQ Phan, David Dzubay, Aaron Travers, Donald Crockett, Ted Hearne, and Andrew Norman.
By the way, it’s pronounced ZAY-vak.
